Now that the bipartisan infrastructure deal has made it over the first Senate hurdle, lawmakers have a moment to catch their breath, check their email, and turn their attention to back-burner agenda items, like legislation to prevent Republicans from driving our democracy off a cliff.
 

• A group of Senate Democrats met on Wednesday to hammer out a revised voting-rights bill, which they’re likely to release in a matter of days. It’s expected to look a lot like the plan Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) proposed as an alternative to the For The People Act, but it might also feature the very necessary addition of language aimed at countering outright election theft by GOP-controlled legislatures, according to an anonymous Democrat in the know. After all, guaranteeing everyone access to the ballot box doesn’t do much good when Georgia Republicans can crouch in there with a paper shredder.
   
• Manchin’s proposal narrowed the scope of the original legislation and tacked on some hot garbage like a national voter-ID requirement, but it would still eliminate partisan gerrymandering, the most urgent matter at hand. Republicans only need to pick up five seats to regain control of the House in 2022, and a new analysis shows that they could net more than twice that many just by drawing themselves some wonky new maps in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas. 
   
• States could have those maps in place by early fall, so Democrats are all but out of runway here. Pressure campaigns to Do Something have ramped up accordingly. In a Thursday op-ed, Former Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) joined calls for a filibuster carveout to pass an enhanced version of Manchin’s proposal before the August recess, if Republicans still refuse to step up (lol). Progressives organizers have unleashed a new six-figure ad campaign targeting Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) in Arizona, where a majority of Democratic voters already seem well and truly over her shit.

Meanwhile, Texas Democrats have bounced back from a distracting coronavirus outbreak and an even more distracting infrastructure frenzy with renewed efforts to build some voting-rights momentum.
 

• Texas Democrats are now more than two weeks into their quorum-busting visit to Washington, DC, as the GOP Texas House speaker starts signing arrest warrants. On Thursday Texas Democrats held virtual meetings with Bill and Hillary Clinton and Stacey Abrams. Caucus members said they hoped the meetings would provide guidance on their next steps, and crank up the pressure on President Biden to meet with them himself. 
   
• Abrams has her own last-minute push in the works: Fair Fight Action and the Center for American Progress Action Fund will bring 40-or-so voters from around the country to DC next week to lobby members of Congress in person. Civil-rights groups have spent the last few weeks staging protests at House and Senate office buildings. Those arrested for taking direct action include Reps. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Hank Johnson (D-GA). 

Barring a delay of the August recess, Senate Democrats have just over a week to pass federal election standards in time to avert a decade or more of fucked-up congressional maps, an undemocratic loss of their House majority in 2022, and, in turn, a potential full-blown democratic implosion in 2024. If Biden were ever going to publicly call for filibuster reform—or take Smanchinema aside for a full-throated “here’s the deal, Jack”—now would be an unbelievably good time!

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President Biden has called on Congress to extend the federal eviction moratorium before it expires on...Saturday, with Congress in no way poised to make that happen. The White House said that Biden would have “strongly supported” a move to extend it unilaterally, but cited last month’s ruling from the Supreme Court that allowed the moratorium to stay in place on the condition that it expire at the end of July. The Court likely would have shot down a further extension, but the attempt would have given renters more time to access federal assistance, which many states have been achingly slow to distribute. The good news: Some states, including California and New York, will continue to bar evictions after the national moratorium expires, and just the process of applying for rental relief could help many people stay in their homes for longer. 

• The U.S. economy fully recovered from pandemic losses in June, which is a strange headline to see alongside “millions at risk of eviction next month,” but here we are! The Delta surge could make that recovery unstable.
   
• President Biden announced that all federal workers must get vaccinated (or submit to regular testing), and called on state and local governments to issue their own vaccine requirements, pronto offer unvaccinated Americans $100 to get their shot.
   
• Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) was wearing body armor under his ugly windbreaker during the January 6 rally, as one does at peaceful, loving gatherings of like-minded tourists.
   
• House Republicans continued their prolonged temper tantrum over the chamber’s reinstated mask mandate, with the House Freedom Caucus demanding that Kevin McCarthy try to force out Nancy Pelosi as speaker, and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) losing his entire mind. 
   
• They’re setting a terrific example: The acting director of the St. Louis County Department of Public Health was assaulted and subjected to racist abuse after speaking in favor a mask mandate.
   
• Defrocked Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has been charged with sexually assaulting a teenage boy in 1974. The charges make McCarrick the highest-ranking Catholic official in the country to face criminal charges for sex abuse. 
   
• The pro-Sanders advocacy group Our Revolution will rebrand as “pragmatic progressives,” decentering Medicare for All in favor of Biden-endorsed policies like Medicare expansion.
   
• Suni Lee became the first Asian American woman to win gold in the gymnastics all-around competition at the Tokyo Olympics.
   
• Facebook whistleblower Sophie Zhang, who wrote a memo on how the company was ignoring the widespread use of the platform for election interference, has spoken out about the personal cost of trying to address the problem without support. 
   
• Scarlett Johansson has sued Disney over its simultaneous release of Black Widow in theaters and on Disney+, alleging it was a breach of her contract. A Disney spokesman called her suit meritless and “especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.”
   
• The jetpack guy has returned to LAX, after a lonely year-and-a-half of jetpacking from home.

Coronavirus aid programs will cut U.S. poverty nearly in half from prepandemic levels and bring the fraction of Americans in poverty to the lowest level on record, according to a new Urban Institute analysis. The number of poor Americans is expected to fall by nearly 20 million from 2018 numbers, an unprecedented drop in such a short timeframe. Poverty rates fell for every demographic group, with greater drops for Black and Latino Americans that narrowed the gap with white Americans—and all of it happened while the economy was in the toilet. Those reductions may be temporary, as some relief programs have ended and others wind down soon, but they’re incredibly exciting real-world proof of the idea that policy can eradicate poverty, and another solid argument for permanent programs that simply provide unconditional help to the people who need it.

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The uptick in vaccinations continues!

A Columbus, OH, pilot program that dispatches social workers instead of police for many emergency calls has been a huge success, leading officials to expand the program.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has signed a bill expanding Medi-Cal coverage to all low-income Californians over age 50, regardless of immigration status.

Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA) has announced a $411.5 million investment in reducing water pollution and increasing access to clean water.